The stories behind the buildings, statues and other points of interest that make Manhattan fascinating.

Saturday, April 23, 2016

Engine Company No. 15 -- No. 269 Henry Street

To the left of the 1884 fire house an elegant Federal home survives.

Before 1865 New York City’s fire fighting depended on a
disorganized collection of volunteer companies. When a fire broke out,
young men in the neighborhood called “laddies” would scramble to the fire
house. Nearby fire houses would vie with one another to arrive at the
fire first, or to become more skilled at extinguishing it. Most of the
volunteer groups gained a reputation as rowdy, boisterous gangs whose fire
houses were essentially social clubs.

But Americus Engine Company No. 6 was a bit more
refined.In 1854 an upscale home at No.
269 Henry Street was converted to a firehouse.It was situated in the midst of one of Manhattan’s most exclusive
residential neighborhoods.The renovated
interiors retained many of their luxurious details.

This engraving was made shortly after the house was converted to a fire station. Well dressed ladies and a gentleman admired the handsome steam engines. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Nevertheless, its members—10 of whom lived permanently in
the building in 1855--held blue-collar jobs; many of them maritime due to the
nearby seaport.That year the roster listed occupations like spar-maker,
caulker, sail-maker, ship joiner, and stevedore.Among the others were cartman, butcher,
blacksmith, carriage-maker, cabinet-maker, marble-cutter and piano forte
hardware.

In 1861 there were 48 members of Americus Engine Company
No. 6, popularly known as the “Big Six.”That year the firehouse received a shiny new steamer, built by Silsby,
Mynderse & Co. in Seneca Falls, New York.The Board of Aldermen’s inspection noted that the company’s 200 feet of
rubber hose and 300 feet of leather hose were “in good condition.”

The days of American Engine Company No. 6 were numbered by
now.The devastating fire that destroyed
Barnum’s Museum in 1865 along with pressure on the State Assembly by reformers
resulted in the Act of 1865 that coupled Brooklyn and New York with a paid,
united “Metropolitan District” fire department.

On September 5 that year The New York Times reported that
the Big Six, in preparation “to give up housekeeping” was selling off its “furniture
and adornments of their house” that day.The items up for sale gave a hint of the comfortable accommodations
here.“Among the furniture are two
cooking-stoves and a chowder-pot, a piano, music and stool, thirty
velvet-cushioned chairs, and no less than five sofas.Among the decorations are about one hundred
oil paintings, some of them of considerable value.”

Two weeks later, on September 19, the Committee on
Appointments and Discipline recommended “an engine company be organized, to be
known as Metropolitan Engine Company No. 15, in the house formerly occupied by
Americus Engine Company No. 6, stationed at No. 269 Henry-street.”

The professional Engine Company would make do of the aging
accommodations for two decades.In 1882
the first steps were taken to replace it with a modern fire house.In December requests for “sealed proposals
for furnishing the materials and labor, and doing the work required” for
construction a fire house were made by the Fire Department.Nearly a year later, in September 1883, the proposal
of $18,200 by Mahony Bros. was accepted and the contract awarded.

The plans for Engine Company No. 15 had been filed on May
11.For four years Napoleon LeBrun &
Son had been the official architects for the New York Fire Department.The firm’s designs were as handsome as they
were utilitarian.For Engine Company No.
15 it mixed Romanesque Revival with the newly-emerging Queen Anne style.The cast iron base followed the customary
fire house arrangement—two openings flanking a large central engine bay.The lively capitals incorporated torches—emblematic
of the fire department—and stylized sunflowers, an important Queen Anne and
Esthetic Movement motif.The sunflowers
reappeared below the cornice, lining up as large terra cotta tiles.

Panels of saw-tooth brick separated the upper levels and
created tactile interest.The arched
openings of the top floor, the nod to Romanesque, were joined by a single
vaulting brick eyebrow.On either side,
ambitious brick console brackets embraced the cornice.Here, too, was an important Queen Anne element,
the sunburst.

The architects were apparently pleased with their
design.They used it two more times in
the identical Engine Company No. 53 on East 104th Street and Engine
Company No. 54 on West 47th Street.

The firefighters living and working from late 19th
century firehouses faced great danger, not only from the fires and dangerous
illuminating gas in the buildings; but from the steam-powered engines and the
galloping horses that drew them.And the
public was often placed in peril as well.

On January 19, 1903 the Heyward Brothers & Wakefield
Company chair factory on Madison Street caught fire following an explosion of benzene.The New-York Tribune reported the blaze “was
made exciting by falling walls, brilliant rescues and the jumping into a net of
one of the victims.”

There were about 50 employees in the factory at the time,
many trapped by the rapid spread of the flames following the explosion.When Engine Company No. 15 arrived, they saw 23-year
old Frederick Zimmerman standing on a sixth floor window ledge with flames
licking close behind him.

With no time to run a ladder up to him, the firemen rushed
to pull the life net from the hose wagon.Civilians helped pull it taut over the sidewalk and Zimmerman was
instructed to jump.He thought about the
six-floor plunge for a few seconds, then stepped off the ledge.The Tribune reported “He kept his balance
well in the air, and as he neared the net threw himself backward and landed in
the net on his back.”

The crowd expected to see him bounce slightly in the net;
but to their shock and horror he crashed through the net onto the
sidewalk.He was taken to Gouveneur
Hospital with suspected internal injuries.

The other trapped employees were far more fortunate.Daring rescues were made that night, at least
one man being carried down a ladder on a fire fighter’s back.

Later that year, on July 22, Engine Company No. 15
responded to an alarm.A crowd of
children were playing on the sidewalk on Clinton Street when the fire engine
tore around the corner from Henry Street.Five-year old Sarah Adelman, unaware of the danger, started across the
street.The New-York Tribune reported “As
unconcerned as if she were still playing on the sidewalk, she stood in the
middle of the street.On hearing the
cries of women and seeing the swaying tender approaching, she became paralyzed
with fear and made no effort to get out of the way.”

Michael Martin, driving the engine, realized that the team
of horses was going so fast he could not slow them in time, nor even swerve to
avoid the girl.Taking a desperate
change, he aimed directly for her, “trusting to luck that she would pass between
the horses.”

Martin’s gamble worked.Sarah stood motionless as the horses galloped by on either side of
her.She was knocked down by the pole
and the tender passed over her without the wheels touching her body.The little girl escaped with a cut on the
head and a lesson learned.

Burning torches are incorporated into the leafy capitals, and flames erupt from behind the round medallion.

The once-elegant neighborhood around the firehouse had
substantially changed by now.Fine homes
had been replaced by tenements and the Henry Street area was one of immigrants,
many German Jews.Near the fire house,
on Gouverneur Street, between Henry Street and East Broadway, was the East Side
Kindergarten and Industrial School.When
an overheated stove set fire to the building during school hours on
March 17, 1908, the principal did some quick and resourceful thinking.

Before Engine Company 15 could arrive, Mrs. Hill prevented
the 500 children from being panic-stricken by announcing that classes were being
let out early “as it was Purim.”The New
York Times reported “The children marched out quietly” and the fire fighters
put out the blaze.

In the fall of 1910 an arsonist was determined, for
whatever reason, to destroy the tenement building at No. 170 Clinton Street.During the first week of November four
unsuccessful attempts were made to set fire to the structure.After those attempts failed, he apparently
turned to the building next door at No. 172.This time he was rewarded.

The fire started in the basement and spread rapidly
through the airshaft.It was discovered
then 19-year old Jacob Andrer started down the stairway with his three younger
siblings.The residents of the building,
mostly impoverished immigrants, were thrown into a panic.

When Engine Company 15 reached the scene, tragedy had
already occurred.Jacob Andrer had
alerted his parents, 60-year old Rebecca Andrer and Rabbi Samuel Andrer, of the
quickly growing danger.There was no way
down, so the family of six, who lived on the third floor, started up the fire
escape to the roof.Part way up Rebecca
lost her footing on the rickety stairs and fell, nearly taking the rabbi with
her.Her body smashed on the courtyard
pavement.

Fire Engine Company 15 rescued the other residents of the
building, including the rest of the Andrer family and four children trapped in
a fourth floor flat.

Boys play in the street in front of the fire station in 1939. from the collection of the New York Public Library

The heroism of the fire fighters was not reserved to
conflagrations.When the United States
entered World War II, fireman Peter J. Dannhardt left Engine Company No. 15 to
fight for his country.He never
returned.The men of the station house
pooled their money to pay for a bronze plaque in his memory. Affixed to the firehouse wall, it was unveiled
by his parents on his 30th birthday, July 6, 1946.

The station lost another firefighter in a bizarre accident
that year. At around 3:30 on the morning of December 30, the Company responded
to a ground floor grocery store fire at No. 234 Henry Street, just one block
away.The blaze was under control an
hour later, but Engine Company No. 15 remained for “overhauling”
operations.At 5:25 the fire truck was
just pulling into the firehouse when somehow 34-year old Daniel Krauss was
thrown from the truck.He died in the
hospital at 6:49 that morning.

In 1975 the City was on the verge of financial
collapse.City employees, like
sanitation workers, were being laid off or their number of work days cut
back.The closing of fire stations was
seen as another cost cutting method.When Mayor Abraham Beame’s administration announced that Engine Company
No. 15 was on the list of stations to be closed, the neighborhood
rebelled.On July 11 more than 200
demonstrators marched in front of the Fire Department Headquarters on Church
Street in protest.

Rather surprisingly, the protestors, many of whom were
elderly, were heard.Engine Company No.
15 remained active.But then in 2002 the
Company moved to a firehouse on nearby Pitt Street.The old LeBrun-designed building sat vacant, its
cast iron tag ENGINE COMPANY NO. 15 removed from above the bay doors.

In 2007 the City transferred ownership to the Henry Street
Settlement.A repurposing plan designed by
preservation architects J. Lawrence Johns & Associates and Beyer Blinder
Belle Architects will result in a multi-function community and Settlement space
while preserving the historic integrity of the design.